States are like people. They do not question the awful status quo until some dramatic event overturns the conventional and lax way of thinking.
Victor Davis HansonRead
The gradual decline of a society is often a self-induced process of trying to meet ever-expanding appetites, rather than a physical inability to produce past levels of food and fuel, or to maintain adequate defense.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Societal decline is often caused by our own excessive demands rather than a lack of resources.
Victor Davis Hanson's quote suggests that the deterioration of society is not merely a result of dwindling resources or external pressures, but rather a self-created phenomenon driven by insatiable desires. This highlights the importance of understanding that when societies overextend themselves to satisfy expanding appetites, they may ultimately pave the way for their own decline, emphasizing the need for moderation and responsible management of resources.
Themes
SocietyDeclineResourcesAppetitesSelf-InducedModeration
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about sustainable living, one might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of moderation in consumption.
More from Victor Davis Hanson
All quotes →Behind every American soldier, dozens of their countrymen tonight sleep soundly — and hundreds more in their shadow abroad will wake up alive and safe.
Victor Davis HansonRead
Any time the Western way of war can be unleashed on an enemy stupid enough to enter its arena, victory is assured.
Victor Davis HansonRead
This bloody past suggests to us that enemies cease hostilities only when they are battered enough to acknowledge that there is no hope in victory - and thus that further resistance means only useless sacrifice.
Victor Davis HansonRead
Similar quotes
What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.
Frederick BuechnerRead
One sometimes feels a guest of one's time and not a member of its household.
George F. KennanRead
Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of. A bad future, too, like something out of Fritz Lang's feeble imagination.
Henry MillerRead
But they know about us, they know, the four corners, and the chairs nearby us. Discerning shadows also know, and even the table keeps quiet.
Wislawa SzymborskaRead
But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.
Bret Easton EllisRead
It [a new world order] needs only that the governments of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and Russia should get together in order to set up an effective control of currency, credit, production, and distribution – that is to say, an effective ‘dictatorship of prosperity,’ for the whole world. The other sixty odd States would have to join in or accommodate themselves to the over-ruling decisions of these major Powers.
H. G. WellsRead